The McDonnell verdict’s lesson: Politicians beware

The conclusion politicians should draw? “Anything that’s done in your capacity as a public official can be an official act,” James said.

The verdict isn’t likely to have any bearing on the other high-profile legal investigations that have been in the news in recent months. An investigation into the possible coordination of fundraising around the recall election of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is on hold, and the prosecutor has said that Walker himself is not a target. And the indictment of Texas Gov. Rick Perry alleges abuse of power, not corruption.

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McDonnell’s defense team has promised to appeal the verdict, and they could get the broader definition of “official actions” overturned in the process. They didn’t give details about their strategy, but Brand said the judge’s jury instructions are the most likely grounds for an appeal: “It’s always the jury instructions.”

Baran said that even if there’s a debate over the definition, McDonnell’s actions may have crossed the line into official actions anyway.

“There can be debate about what constitutes an official act. But using government property to promote a commercial product, arranging meetings with other government officials who are subordinates and similar acts that invoke the prestige of office seem pretty ‘official’ to me,” Baran said.

Even so, Virginia lawmakers are likely to use the McDonnell verdict as a springboard for another attempt to strengthen the state’s ethics laws, which, until recently, were considered some of the weakest in the nation.

When McDonnell was governor, Virginia didn’t even limit the amount of gifts politicians could receive.

That changed earlier this year, when a new law limited individuals’ gifts to politicians to $250 a year. But there are still limits to the law — it doesn’t limit “intangible gifts” such as meals and transportation, and the limits only apply to businessmen and lobbyists doing business with the state, not friends.

Still, even that law lifted Virginia out of the bottom category of state ethics laws. As of now, 31 states, including Virginia, set dollar limits on gifts, according to Peggy Kerns, director of the Center for Ethics in Government at the National Conference of State Legislatures. Nine are considered “zero tolerance” states, banning virtually all gifts. And 10 states only require officeholders to disclose their gifts — the category Virginia was in until this year.

The new law “puts them in the majority of states,” Kerns said. States often go through a process of strengthening their ethics laws, she said, and “I can’t be critical of what Virginia did, because it was a big step.”

It probably won’t be considered big enough after the McDonnell verdict, though. Sen. Creigh Deeds — McDonnell’s Democratic opponent in the 2009 governor’s race – said the legislature should try again next year, and possibly ban all gifts.

“The ethics legislation we passed in this session didn’t do much. It was almost like we were passing something just for the sake of passing something,” Deeds said. “I think there will be more of a push to pass ethics legislation with real teeth … Virginians expect more from their state government.”

Deeds said he didn’t think most Virginia lawmakers needed to worry too much about their own actions. “I still have faith in human nature. I still think that most people who are elected to public office are doing the right thing,” he said.

Even so, the McDonnell verdict is clearly putting pressure on other elected officials – especially in Virginia – to prove that they take ethics more seriously than he did.

“As someone who has been deeply involved in Virginia politics for an awfully long time, today is a very sad day. It is sad because it has inevitably undermined the confidence that Virginians have in the integrity of our system,” said Republican Sen. Mark Obenshain, who proposed ethics reforms in his campaign for attorney general last year. “Even though there will be appeals and the case is far from over, we need to work to restore that confidence.”